Editorial: Can this budget be saved?

The never-ending budget feud between Gov. Rod Blagojevich and House Speaker Michael Madigan represents nothing so much as a game of who blinks first. It's pointless and puerile, on both their parts.

The never-ending budget feud between Gov. Rod Blagojevich and House Speaker Michael Madigan represents nothing so much as a game of who blinks first. It's pointless and puerile, on both their parts.

Earlier this week Blagojevich warned the Legislature that he would be making at least $1.5 billion in specified cuts from the state's budget unless the Speaker steps up with the necessary revenue streams. While frequently Illinois' budget is balanced in name only - based on optimistic revenue or purposely lowball spending assumptions and other abracadabra - this one doesn't even bother to pretend there's a state Constitution mandating that expenditures and revenues match up. The governor says it's $2.1 billion out of whack. So much for the rule of law - and the rule of adults - in the Land of Lincoln.

Blagojevich is absolutely right, then, when he says, "For me to sign this budget would be lying to the people of Illinois. It would be like writing a check that I know would bounce."

As a result the governor is giving Madigan's House until July 9 to fix what's broken in this budget. Specifically he wishes the House would approve, as the Senate has, a $34 billion capital construction program - which includes an expansion of gambling - a $16 billion refinancing of the state's pension debt and a sweep of special purpose funds that he says would cover the $59.1 billion spending plan the Legislature passed last month.

Otherwise, he'll formally veto all or parts of the budget. Some of those cuts could really hurt. Medicaid providers - doctors and hospitals who serve the disadvantaged - would again take it on the chin, with a $530 million slap and another 20 days added to the embarrasing 70-day average wait they already have for payment. There would be staff cuts at the state's prisons and chief child welfare agency. Subtract $110 million from schools. As usual, the most vulnerable - the poor, seniors, the disabled, veterans, kids - get hit the hardest.

Obviously, the governor is hoping pressure from those impacted constituencies will force Madigan to the table. We wouldn't hold our breath. Indeed, we can't vouch for the rest of the state but our read on this part of central Illinois is that most folks feel very disconnected from their state government, as if Springfield is a foreign culture in a faraway land that no one really understands - or cares to.

We don't hear any demands among the rank and file for state government to shell out this extra $1.5 billion or $2.1 billion or whatever it is. We suspect many would say Illinois should tame its spending, at least to the rate of inflation. The budget that was adopted is 7 percent higher than the year before; indeed, it's $800 million higher than the governor asked for. That's not sustainable.

In any event, the Constitution means what it says. The governor has no choice but to trim this budget by $2.1 billion if Madigan doesn't play.

What's most despicable about this stand-off is that it seems less about practicing good public policy than about politics and personal dislike.

Madigan is trying to make the governor look like the bad guy by forcing him to make some unpopular cuts, when in fact it was irresponsible for his House not to do its part here by passing a budget that's even remotely balanced.

Meanwhile, Blagojevich is trying to make the Speaker look like the bad guy by pinning a tax-and-spender label on him, when in fact the governor helped create this sorry situation - first with his foolish campaign promise to take income and sales taxes off the revenue table; second by returning to the same revenue wells the Legislature has said, sometimes repeatedly, it's reluctant to empty; third by adding programs (especially in health care) when Illinois couldn't afford the government it already had; and finally by throwing money at runaway spending programs (see pensions) without real reforms to discipline them.

Illinoisans could be forgiven for wishing a pox on both their houses. You'd think the smartest politics would just be practicing good government. This isn't.

We doubt this relationship can be salvaged, certainly not by July 9.

The governor should go ahead and veto this extra spending, and let the Legislature respond.